As the electronic industry blooms, various electronic devices are introduced to the market and used extensively in our daily life. To input instructions to control and operate the electronic devices or transmit data between the electronic devices, most electronic devices come with a plurality of connectors installed on a motherboard.
At present, each of the popular personal computers has a plurality of connectors on the motherboard, and these connectors include Universal Serial Bus (USB) connectors, External Serial Advance Technology Attachment (e-SATA) connectors, RJ-45 connectors, and High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) connectors. By connecting a transmission line to an external control device to receive control instructions or connecting the transmission line with another electronic device, data can be transmitted between several electronic devices.
Since science and technology bloom and users have increasingly higher demand on data transmission speed, the transmission speed of conventional electric connectors can no longer satisfy user requirements anymore. Therefore, new electric connectors and corresponding transmission lines are developed and available in the market. In addition to the present existing transmission terminals inside the electric connector, one or more optical fiber transmission connectors are added to improve the transmission speed. Further, an optical connector and a corresponding optical fiber cable are developed and available in the market. The conventional copper wires and connection terminals are abandoned, and just the optical fiber transmission connector and the optical components are used for transmitting data instead. Obviously, it is not difficult to imagine that future connectors and transmission lines will have different appearances only, and their interiors can adopt the optical fiber transmission connectors and optical components to transmit signals of different specifications quickly.
However, if a user wants to transmit a signal of a specific specification (such as a signal of the RJ-45 specification) from an electronic device, it is difficult to determine whether the user will use the conventional transmission line to transmit the electric signal of the specification or use the optical fiber cable to transmit the optical signal of the specification. To assure the user can transmit the electric signal of the RJ-45 specification or the optical signal of the RJ-45 specification, the motherboard of the electronic device must have both electric and optical connectors of the RJ-45 specification at the same time, and thus more precious space of the motherboard will be occupied.
In addition, if the several connectors of different specifications are required on a motherboard and these specifications require the installation of at least one electric connector and at least one optical connector simultaneously, then the space on the motherboard will be insufficient for such purpose.
Therefore, a solution without requiring the installation of too-many connectors on the motherboard is needed, so that users can flexibly and selectively transmit signals in form of electric signals or optical signals.